Slow cooking, a trend that’s making a comeback

One cold but sunny day not so long ago, I had a plate of pork chops a young friend had prepared for us. The dish was special, for he had cooked it over long hours, using a process called the sous vide. In this technique, food is placed in an airtight container and cooked very slowly at a constant temperature in water. What struck me was not just the taste of the pork, but the fact that the young, too, were taking to slow cooking, which was once a method followed largely by their grandparents.

As the New Year approaches, it’s time we tweaked an old seasonal adage. ‘Ring out the old, and ring in the new’ — we used to say. Now, we are no longer ringing out the old, but ringing it in back again — for that’s the trend of the future. In 2025, we are going to see a lot of slow cooking. Sure, it has been around for a while, but the trend is now enthusiastically being embraced by the young. A niece tells me she often puts a mix of ingredients — meats, beans, vegetables, and so on — in a slow cooker and leaves for work. She returns home at the end of the day to an aromatic and healthy stew. Some 80 years back, I am told her grandmother did something similar. In a tiered contraption called an Icmic cooker, which looked quite like a tiffin box, she kept the ingredients that would be their dinner — lentils, vegetables, meat, and so on — in separate compartments. The cooker went into a larger cylinder placed above a charcoal stove. Water in an outer chamber steamed up, cooking the food over several leisurely hours.

Some of the nicest Indian dishes are slow-cooked. Think of haleem, shab deg, khichra and mutton raan. I cannot forget the juicy leg of lamb or raan we had at a restaurant called Khyber in Chandigarh one summer on our way to Manali. Another favourite slow-cooked dish is dal makhani. According to Chef Pradip Rozario, an innovative chef who runs an outlet called KK’s Fusion in Kolkata, the test of a good restaurant serving Indian cuisine is its dal makhani. If it works, the restaurant will be a success. For his special dal makhani, he uses black urad dal, chana dal and rajma. He soaks the dals and then puts them in a handi with water. The handi is left overnight over a tandoor, which is no longer burning but is still hot. The dals absorb the water and puff up the next day. In a pot, he sautes onions, ginger and tomatoes, and adds the spices — degi mirch, cumin and coriander powders. He puts the dal into the pot and adds ground red bell peppers to it for colour and flavour. And then, he lets it simmer for a few hours.

There are good reasons why slow cooking is the trend of the future. Modern appliances — such as crockpots, slow cookers and sous vide devices — allow food to be cooked on low heat for long periods. This process also preserves the nutrients while enhancing the taste — which the health-conscious young, especially those with a discerning taste, appreciate. Also, in this age when people are getting tired of instant gratification, sections of people are rediscovering the value of food cooked painstakingly.

I, for one, greatly enjoy the taste of slow-cooked food. One of the earliest slow-cooked dishes I had was a delightful bowl of goulash — full of meat and vegetables, flavoured with red paprika and other spices — cooked by a Hungarian friend.

I hope to start the New Year with some nihari, a dish of lamb shanks. Our friend, the historian Amar Farooqi, makes a mean slow-cooked nihari (see recipe) and I have been dropping brick-like hints about how I have been missing this special dish of his.

As we get ready to usher in the New Year, I remind myself of one saying that doesn’t need to be changed. The slow and steady, indeed, will win the race.

Amar’s nihari

Ingredients

Mutton                                       ½ kg

Onions                                       2

(medium, made into paste)

Ginger-garlic paste              1 tbsp

Ground coriander                1 tbsp

Ground cumin                      1 tbsp

Kashmiri lal mirch               1 tbsp

Fennel (coarsely ground)   1 tbsp

Cloves                                    6-7

Green cardamoms              5-6

Black cardamom                1

Mace                                    A bit

Curd                                     ½ cup

Atta                                      2 tbsp

Desi ghee                           As required

Salt                                    To taste

Method

Make a powder of cloves, cardamoms and mace. Heat ghee in a kadahi. Don’t overheat it. Add onion and garlic-ginger pastes, and the masalas. Add meat and curd, and let it cook on low heat. When almost done — after two hours or so — add two tablespoons of atta mixed with water, and then add ground fennel. Cook till the atta loses its raw smell. Keep stirring, so that the atta does not stick to the pot. Sprinkle water when needed. The consistency should be broth-like. When the ghee rises to the top, it is done. Temper it with half a small onion, sliced and browned. Serve with green chillies, ginger slivers, and pieces of lemon. Add a dollop of ghee before serving.

— The writer is a food critic